Fix-It Leo
by teawithmilk
Summary: [2012-verse] Sometimes, in all of Donatello's ramblings, there are things Leonardo really needs to pay attention to.


—Fix-It Leo—

* * *

"Okay, so you need to put that—" Donatello indicated to a small, scavenged piece of computer, and Leo stared. "—just behind the lens and then take the USB cable and put into the bus while I solder it all up. Then I can set up a Bluetooth signal to the lair, calibrate the OS, and voila! Heat sensors!"

He seemed awfully proud of himself. When Leo blinked slowly, Donnie shifted, wilting slightly at the thought of having to translate for this brother, as well.

"Y-y'know, because we're all exoth— cold-blooded, and _sensei_ almost never leaves the lair, and April almost always texts us before she comes over, so it's an extra level of protection for us now that half of New York wants to use our shells as a soup bowl."

Whenever Donatello explained things, the three of them usually smiled, nodded, and waited for his excited final sentence, which always summarised whatever he had been raving about for the previous five minutes. Ramblings about trans-molecular intervention on the quantum level of genetics turned out to be "and THAT'S why we don't have tails", or "via the Maillard reacion the amino acids creates glycosamine…" something something something "…and that's how toast is made!".

Leonardo prided himself on having significantly more patience than Raphael, and a significantly longer attention-span than Mikey; sometimes, he could even follow Donatello's multi-level train of thought, right up until the point it ran off the tracks and crashed into a ravine.

Which was why, when Donnie had asked for an extra pair of hands for something very delicate, he had been flattered, even proud, that his braniac baby brother would trust him like this. Donnie had given him that shy, happy smile (he didn't see that often enough), handed him a tiny (TINY) screwdriver and showed him a small cloth bundle.

And then Leo had suddenly drawn a blank, as Donnie launched into both digging out a bunch of technical-looking stuff, and his excited talk of how he was on patrol with Raph and Raph was being a jerk as usual, you know how he is, but then we found this junk pile from some store that had gone out of business, and the store happened to be one of those tourist-trap spy stores which, you know, most of that stuff is made-in-China stuff for kids and not really industry standard, if one wanted to be a real spy they'd need stuff that was a lot more heavy duty can you pass me the pliers? no the smaller ones, thanks! but anyway, whenever we'd patrolled past those kind of shops before they always had the really high-level ones that were like $500 but I had never expected something like THAT to be in the trash and by this time Raph had gotten bored - I think he has ADD, Leo, like, Mikey's just hyperactive but Raph has _problems_, maybe we can find a drug store that closed down and get him some adderall. also valium but that's just a suggestion. ANYWAY, so—

He handed Leo a small bundle of wires.

—can you sort these so the male-male and male-female and female-females are in three groups? This one's male and— right, you got it! Now can you open this up? — he handed Leo a broken security camera and set him to work — turn the screws to the left… alright! but like I was saying, this store was closed and outside, in their dumpster we found— well, we were in the dumpster because a bar across the street kicked out — we found… _this_.

And he gently unfolded the cloth to reveal a squat wide piece of hardware, and a flawless glass lens.

And that brought them back to now. Donnie sealed up the new camera with a proud smile, beamed at Leo, and waggled his hands in excitement. "See? Nice work!" and Leo had smiled and nodded. Donnie was happy. Something good had been done. Justice had prevailed! And though he'd barely followed half of what Donatello was actually doing, it had been nice to be on the receiving end of that attention, rather than the other way around, with Donnie coveting his stuff and then unveiling later in the hopes of impressing the three of them.

"Leo, you do… this makes sense, right?" And there was a slight hitch in Donatello's voice, a vulnerability that he usually covered up with yelling or burrowing back into the guts of something. This was important. He couldn't let Donnie doubt his genius like this.

What would Captain Ryan do?

Captain Ryan would bluff, flawlessly. And Captain Ryan was never wrong. "Sure," he replied, offering Donatello an easy smile. "Once we get it calibrated, we can set it up down the tracks, right?"

"Right."

"And then the positronic impulse can nebularize any intruders."

Beat.

"Are— are you quoting _Space Heroes_ at me!?"

Leo shifted awkwardly; the joke had missed its mark. "No…?"

It was Space Heroes IV, actually, but that was just a technicality.

Donnie bridled, squaring his shoulders. He pointed at Leonardo. "You. Cold thing. This? No noise." Then he pointed out to the kitchen, where they could hear Splinter making tea. "_Sensei_? Warm thing. This? WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP **WOOP**."

"Got it."

"Good."

They were quiet for a moment, then, and Leo watched, not sure how to fix this. It wasn't often anybody was allowed in on Donatello's projects - he'd built the whole Shellraiser all by himself, after all. And Leo couldn't let Donatello lock everything back up again when he'd only just re-learned how to share.

"You know, you could have said something," Donatello added after a moment, breathing on the lens to make sure it was absolutely dust-free for the fourth time, and he wouldn't look at Leo. "I mean— just say something. It's okay."

Leo shrugged. "Why? This is who you are, Donnie. Just because we don't always 'get it' doesn't mean we don't get _you_."

"…oh."

"Come on," He rested a hand on Donnie's wrist, firm. He could fix this. "Let's go find a good place to put this."

—end—


End file.
